Homage
Homage Leverages Avex to Enhance UX, Optimize Merchandising, and Scale on Shopify
Services
- Shopify Development
- Site Architecture Planning
- Merchandising Solutions
- Technical Documentation
Background
Homage operates at the intersection of sports fandom and apparel, managing a large, highly seasonal catalog tied to teams, players, and moments that drive demand. The business relies on fast launches, intuitive product discovery, and a platform that can withstand traffic spikes.
As the catalog expanded, the Shopify site became increasingly difficult to scale. Recurring bugs, architectural constraints, and inefficient user flows introduced friction across merchandising and product launches. With critical site optimizations required ahead of the NFL season, Homage needed a more stable, scalable foundation to support advanced merchandising, ensure finalized UX designs could be implemented correctly, and reduce operational risk during peak traffic periods.
Technology Partners
- Shopify
- Athos Commerce
- Loop
- Loyalty Lion
- Gorgias
Approach
Avex partnered with Homage to strengthen the technical foundation of their Shopify storefront at a moment when stability and scale mattered most. Early in the engagement, Avex led architectural planning to address recurring reliability issues and growing merchandising complexity, creating a foundation designed to withstand high-traffic moments like the NFL season launch.
That foundation shaped everything that followed. Avex executed finalized UX designs with precision, integrated advanced search and merchandising functionality, and delivered a modular design system built for long-term flexibility. The result was a platform that supports rapid growth and seasonal demand while remaining reliable, maintainable, and efficient for internal teams post-launch.
Enterprise Grade Shopify Architecture
Avex delivered a documented Shopify architecture designed to support Homage’s rapid product expansion and merchandising complexity. The site architecture addressed codebase structure, repository management, and third-party integrations, ensuring the platform could scale alongside a projected increase in products and categories without introducing instability.
By establishing clear technical standards and integration guidelines upfront, Avex reduced recurring bugs, improved site reliability, and created a foundation that supports ongoing development, seasonal launches, and future enhancements with lower technical risk.
Scalable Product Data Model
Homage’s merchandising strategy required a structured approach to product data. Product architecture and attribute mapping were redefined to support consistent organization across collections, search, and filters.
This standardized framework enables advanced merchandising logic, improves product discoverability, and provides a scalable data model that supports ongoing catalog expansion without increasing complexity.
Advanced Search and Merchandising Infrastructure
Advanced merchandising requirements necessitated a more flexible product discovery solution. SearchSpring, now Athos Commerce, was integrated to enable greater control over search behavior, product ranking, and recommendations across the site.
To meet requirements beyond standard implementations, our team developed a custom app to extend SearchSpring's functionality while maintaining performance and UX consistency. This allowed Homage to execute sophisticated merchandising strategies without introducing instability or disrupting the shopping experience.
Navigation Built for How Fans Shop
Homage’s catalog structure is deeply tied to teams, players, and logos, requiring navigation patterns that reflect how customers naturally browse. Standard category-based navigation was not sufficient to support this complexity.
Our team designed a navigation framework around logo-driven entry points and reinforced it with secondary navigation at the collection level. This approach enables customers to explore by team, player, or category with less friction, improves discoverability during peak traffic periods, and scales as new products and collections are introduced.
Modular Design System for Operational Efficiency
As content and merchandising needs increased, flexibility without instability became a priority. A modular design system was introduced to standardize components and reduce reliance on custom development.
This system empowers the Homage team to create and modify layouts independently while preserving design consistency and performance. It also supports ongoing feature rollouts and site updates with minimal development effort, improving operational efficiency post-launch.
Technical SEO and Performance Optimization
For Homage, improving SEO and performance required addressing technical limitations at the platform level. The rebuild supports cleaner metadata, improved crawl paths, consistent page templates, and properly structured schema markup across key page types.
By embedding technical SEO and structured data directly into the core architecture, the site is positioned for increased organic visibility as the catalog continues to grow. This foundation supports long term SEO gains without requiring ongoing manual intervention or rework.
A Trusted Partnership
The engagement was structured as a close working partnership, with ongoing collaboration across technical planning, development, and execution. Clear communication and alignment allowed decisions to be made efficiently while maintaining a high standard of quality throughout the project.
The result was a smooth launch delivered on schedule and a relationship that extended beyond the initial engagement. Homage has continued working with Avex on retainer, reflecting confidence in both the platform delivered and the team behind it.
Let’s work together
Tell us your business goals and we’ll see how we can create something amazing together.